I preached this sermon on February 1, 2026, as pulpit supply to Christ Presbyterian Church in Milford, Ohio.
The lectionary text is Psalm 15 – Who Shall Abide in God’s Sanctuary?
Also included is Matthew 5:1-11 – The Beatitudes.
When a runner completes a marathon, they are traditionally presented with the coveted finisher’s medal. The medal doesn’t signify just a four- or five-hour effort; it’s the culmination of months of training and sacrifice.
It’s not easy completing a marathon. By mile 20 it gets tough, the sun is out and getting hot, you’re dehydrated, cramping, with maybe a blister or two forming. But when you finish, you have a real feeling of satisfaction, of accomplishment.
A marathon finish is cherished. That medal is earned, and represents the self-fulfillment that only comes from proving to yourself that you can run the prescribed 26.2 miles, mimicking the run Pheidippides made 2500 years ago. You have finished the race marked out for you. It can be very emotional at the finish line.
Unless you cheat.
When integrity is compromised, that finisher’s medal becomes a monument to deceit. And the real shame is the cheater skips using grit, determination and perseverance, settling instead for a shortcut and a lie.
A cheater misses the true spirit of the race, just as they miss the essence of an upright life. You cannot focus on perseverance while plotting a deception. Where is the challenge? Where is the integrity?
Lack of integrity and ethics are a problem in the world today.
· Think of sex scandals in the Catholic church over the last couple decades.
· Corporate scandals, like Enron in 2001, causing employees to lose their retirement savings and creating a whole new accounting field for corporate governance, AKA Sarbanes-Oxley.
· Employees committing fraud, like creating millions of fake customer accounts at Wells-Fargo in 2016, just to hit sales targets for their bonuses.
· Politicians and their ability to spin the truth.
· Students using AI so much in school that teachers and professors have to use tools to catch it, causing new tools to be created to avoid detection.
· It feels like the Groundhog Day movie, problems keep repeating.
As Christians, we need to model integrity, to walk blamelessly, not be part of the problem! That’s where David is taking us in today’s psalm.
Let me share that I have never preached on an Old Testament passage before. I feel it’s easier to preach on the New Testament passages in the lectionary, usually from the gospels. If the gospel lesson has a parable in it, then the sermon is practically outlined already. But this week’s gospel lesson from Matthew is the Beatitudes, a wonderful passage that I can assume most of you have heard sermons on. But I’m guessing you haven’t heard a sermon on Psalm 15 as often as the Beatitudes. The lectionary is full of great messages today, between Matthew and Psalm 15, as well as the other Old Testament reading, which is from Micah.
Psalm 15 opens with a two-part question, and the verbs matter. Most translations use words like abide and dwell: “Who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill?” These words describe more than showing up. To abide or dwell is to remain—to settle in—to live in God’s presence, where two or more are gathered in His name.
It’s the difference between a guest who drops by for a few minutes and a family member who lives in the house. David isn’t asking who can stop in for God; he’s asking who truly belongs in God’s presence—who really worships.
In other words: Who comes to God fully engaged? David answers his own question in the next four verses by describing the kind of person who can come into God’s presence and remains there.
The psalmist begins his answer in verse two: “One who walks with integrity and does what is right, and speaks the truth from their heart.” C.S. Lewis may have been thinking about Psalm 15 when he said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody is watching.”
Does anybody remember Rosie Ruiz? She was declared the women’s winner of the 1980 Boston Marathon. Turns out she thought taking the subway was an easier way to get to the finish line. Well, people saw her on the Green Line, skipping the screaming gauntlet that is Wellesley College and the hardship of Heartbreak Hill.
Then a couple Harvard students saw her jump into the race at Kenmore Square, a mile from the finish. Due to a miscalculation on her part, she crossed the iconic finish line on Boylston Street as first women. People saw her cheat, and she was discovered, disqualified and disgraced.
The person who walks with integrity doesn’t just talk about what is right—they do what is right. Anyone can claim faith with their words. But integrity shows up in decisions, habits, and everyday choices—how we treat people, how we speak, how we handle money, did we take our cart back to the cart corral, how we respond when no one is watching.
[SLIDE] Let me read to you a passage from the Old Testament reading in today’s lectionary, Micah 6:6-8 [page 866]:
What God Requires
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you [?]
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah is pointing out what David wrote: actions are more important than appearance: Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly. And here’s the rest of the answer in verses 2 through 5 from Psalm 15: Did you speak the truth (Psalm 15:2); did you not slander (Psalm 15:3) or “lift up” words against your neighbor (Psalm 15:3); did you stand by your word (Psalm 15:4); and did you not speak ill of any innocent person just for your own gain (Psalm 15:5)? The person about to go to worship God ought to reflect on his or her relationships to friends and neighbors.
Verse four begins, “Those who despise flagrant sinners.” Can I bring up flagrant cheating runners again?
Marathon Investigation looks into allegations of runners cheating at races, usually marathons or longer, at a national and even international level. I know the lead investigator, Derek Murphy, who lives just up the road in Lebanon, Ohio. It’s a shame that distance running needs to police itself against those who think cutting the course, carrying someone else’s bib number, or running as a bandit for free is acceptable. They are running using their own rules, their own scruples, their own standards. They are cheating, and they think no one is looking.
Well, I got a message from Derek in 2022. You see, I direct a trail race here in Cincinnati every October for twenty years now. While investigating a runner’s questionable results in other races, Derek saw that she ran my race. We’ll call her Jo, because that’s the fake name she used. Upon closer scrutiny, Derek found discrepancies in Jo’s loop times, something I hadn’t caught as she ran to her third place finish and award. There was no miscalculation on her part. Her cheating fit a pattern of deliberately miscounting loops and the strategic use of a porta-potty. Please don’t ask for details!
I disqualified her after Derek’s findings were published and I had to buy a new third place award and present it to the cheated runner. It’s easy to despise flagrant sinners, isn’t it?
Psalm 15 concludes with what could be described as a blessing on those who live a life of righteousness and integrity, a promise from God. “Those who do these things will never be shaken.” It’s not the entrance exam for Heaven. And David is not saying that such a person who demonstrates these ethics will never face storms. He is saying that when the storms come—and they will—their life will not collapse.
We know the difference. Some lives look solid as bedrock until pressure hits. When the diagnosis comes, when the relationship breaks, when the market drops, when the truth comes out—everything starts to wobble. But David says there is a way to live so that, even under pressure, you remain standing, not shaken, not moved.
The message of Psalm 15, and of Micah 6, and Matthew 5, the Beatitudes, seems to be that God is not so much interested in whether we get the ritual right—the invocation, the litany, the music, the offering, as God is interested in whether our attitude and actions are right as we enter into the sanctuary. Not with what happens when one is inside the sanctuary – but with what happens when one leaves the sanctuary and is back in the world!
Our two sons were in Boy Scouts, now known as Scouting America. When I read Psalm 15, my mind went to the Scout Law, a set of twelve values we should all abide in. Let me read them to you:
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Some of you could have recited that with me.
Except for the clean and cheerful parts, I’d say Psalm 15 nailed it 3000 years before the scouts did, wouldn’t you?
What does God really care about as he asks for our presence in his sacred sanctuary?? For us to abide on his holy hill? He wants us to be blameless, to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly. Within and outside His sanctuary. Then, “He or she who does these things shall never be shaken.”
In Jesus’ name.
